So, a few days ago Apple announced iOS 8 and previewed some of it features. This made me look back into Android, specifically Stock Android. And with Google I/O just around the corner, here are some things that I wish Google will improve on.
The Dark, Old, and Gloomy Holo UI
When it first came out, Holo UI was the thing. Everyone who was still on Gingerbread wanted it, they installed launchers and even modded framework and stuff. Skip forward 3 years, Holo UI is still here with a little change on the icon colours. Some may love it, but it's definitely getting boring. There are rumours that the next version will be 5.0 instead of 4.5. I hope that with the 1.0 jump, there will be a major UI overhaul.
The Not So Helpful Quick Tiles
Quick Tiles, when you look at it it really seems to help make things quicker. "Oh look, the WiFi icon. If I press this, it's gonna toggle the WiFi, right?" NOPE, clicking it will bring you to the Settings section while long pressing it will toggle it instead. I don't know how long it's been like this but I've only tasted stock since 4.2.2 and it's still like this on KitKat so... Someone in the UX Department needs to be scolded.
Not only it's rather misguiding, the toggles itself doesn't offer that much. There are no tiles for NFC, Sync, Auto Rotation and there's no way to add them either. Custom ROMs and manufacturers' skins however offer all these for years and even after a few 0.1 updates, Google doesn't seem to touch this. Which makes me wonder if most people prefer it Google's way. I definitely don't.
KitKat Transparency Not Being Used
When KitKat was announced, the transparent status bar and navigation bar really wowed me. I was hoping the colours would match accordingly to which app is opened. But apparently, apps need to be updated and coded to take advantage of this. Which is fine, there are a few apps that does this but what baffles me is Google isn't one of them. Other than Google Now Launcher, everything pretty much stayed the same. How can others be motivated to do this when even Google isn't doing it.
It Lacks Appeal to the Public Eyes
Have you seen what other skinned Android can do without installing other apps? Multi-Window, Dual Capture Camera, Slow Motion Video Capture, Floating Apps, Power Saving Mode, Video Calling, and many more. What can Stock Android do? Well, normal stuff every Android smartphone can do except those above I guess. Stock Android are designed for developers and tech enthusiasts so it should be normal to stay as de-bloated as possible but don't you want some of those goodies that other skins offer?
Your Thoughts?
Yes, there are apps that can do the stuff above and Xposed Framework can help, but we're talking about pure stock Android without roots and many other stuff. Which makes me wonder, being a Nexus user, how many of you guys stay pure stock?
With competition heating up such as iOS's possible split Window Mode and Windows 8.1's Cortana, not to mention other emerging OS such as Tizen, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish and Firefox OS; Android need to step up it's game on the next version. What do you think will make Stock Android better?
uchihakurtz said:
So, a few days ago Apple announced iOS 8 and previewed some of it features. This made me look back into Android, specifically Stock Android. And with Google I/O just around the corner, here are some things that I wish Google will improve on.
The Dark, Old, and Gloomy Holo UI
When it first came out, Holo UI was the thing. Everyone who was still on Gingerbread wanted it, they installed launchers and even modded framework and stuff. Skip forward 3 years, Holo UI is still here with a little change on the icon colours. Some may love it, but it's definitely getting boring. There are rumours that the next version will be 5.0 instead of 4.5. I hope that with the 1.0 jump, there will be a major UI overhaul.
The Not So Helpful Quick Tiles
Quick Tiles, when you look at it it really seems to help make things quicker. "Oh look, the WiFi icon. If I press this, it's gonna toggle the WiFi, right?" NOPE, clicking it will bring you to the Settings section while long pressing it will toggle it instead. I don't know how long it's been like this but I've only tasted stock since 4.2.2 and it's still like this on KitKat so... Someone in the UX Department needs to be scolded.
Not only it's rather misguiding, the toggles itself doesn't offer that much. There are no tiles for NFC, Sync, Auto Rotation and there's no way to add them either. Custom ROMs and manufacturers' skins however offer all these for years and even after a few 0.1 updates, Google doesn't seem to touch this. Which makes me wonder if most people prefer it Google's way. I definitely don't.
KitKat Transparency Not Being Used
When KitKat was announced, the transparent status bar and navigation bar really wowed me. I was hoping the colours would match accordingly to which app is opened. But apparently, apps need to be updated and coded to take advantage of this. Which is fine, there are a few apps that does this but what baffles me is Google isn't one of them. Other than Google Now Launcher, everything pretty much stayed the same. How can others be motivated to do this when even Google isn't doing it.
It Lacks Appeal to the Public Eyes
Have you seen what other skinned Android can do without installing other apps? Multi-Window, Dual Capture Camera, Slow Motion Video Capture, Floating Apps, Power Saving Mode, Video Calling, and many more. What can Stock Android do? Well, normal stuff every Android smartphone can do except those above I guess. Stock Android are designed for developers and tech enthusiasts so it should be normal to stay as de-bloated as possible but don't you want some of those goodies that other skins offer?
Your Thoughts?
Yes, there are apps that can do the stuff above and Xposed Framework can help, but we're talking about pure stock Android without roots and many other stuff. Which makes me wonder, being a Nexus user, how many of you guys stay pure stock?
With competition heating up such as iOS's possible split Window Mode and Windows 8.1's Cortana, not to mention other emerging OS such as Tizen, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish and Firefox OS; Android need to step up it's game on the next version. What do you think will make Stock Android better?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Custom ROMS are way ahead of this.. Stock, naaaa.. Custom roms you get features satablility and sort of completeness. It defeats stock by a long margin.
Rohit02 said:
Custom ROMS are way ahead of this.. Stock, naaaa.. Custom roms you get features satablility and sort of completeness. It defeats stock by a long margin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, tried stock for a week, couldn't stand it :silly: With all those bugs, it makes you wonder if people at Google actually uses stock Android or never tried custom ROMs, lol.
uchihakurtz said:
Yeah, tried stock for a week, couldn't stand it :silly: With all those bugs, it makes you wonder if people at Google actually uses stock Android or never tried custom ROMs, lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL,Nice one.
+1 on that
Related
I've kinda asked into it before and it seems hard.
But if we all got together to raise some ruckus for it it should get done. All the roms coming out are about speed. I just don't see why there hasn't been a rom that attempted to
1. Use the Samsung BeholdII notifcation bar with wifi/gps/bluetooth/+ toggels
2. The Pulse 3x3 canvas
Just things like that.
But then again I could be the only one interested in it.. what do you think?
Icons can be used in anything if they can be sized correctly but certain system apps rely on the frameworks from the specific UI overlay(sense,pulse,blur).
Plus I don't think they're interested in doing that stuff.
I literally have no interest.
None.
Maybe I'll have to see it though.
Simply as the title suggests, why does it seem every rom of vanilla 2.0 & 2.1 now fail to have such smooth transitioning between home screens as versions 1.5 & 1.6 did?
This question spans across other android devices too. For instance, when I first saw the motorola droid I was a little shocked to see it switch home screens with so much more lag compared to my old G1 running 1.6. Honestly, I'd figure something as simple as that would be somewhat of a selling point to some simple minded consumers and it really confuses me as to why Google kind of dropped it--at least in terms of combating Apple products it seems like Google kind of gave up.
I have just been assuming it was for battery conservation reasons, if so, is there a way to disable this or somehow simply make it smoother in 2.0 & 2.1 like before?
Thanks for any reply. Sorry for any complete unbearable ignorance I'm nothing more than a noob at some of these things still.
The background in android 2.x is now handled by a different applet, before it was part of the Launcher it self (it still is, just a different part of the Launcher rather than both being under the same window manager).
It sucks, specially on the G1. I've never seen a 2.x rom (other than my own) where the flicking from screen to screen is smooth, so maybe retrofitting the old launcher to 2.x would be idea for those not sold into the live wallpapers thing (or maybe we could make our own version of live wallpapers with animated gifs or even some fancy java)
jubeh said:
The background in android 2.x is now handled by a different applet, before it was part of the Launcher it self (it still is, just a different part of the Launcher rather than both being under the same window manager).
It sucks, specially on the G1. I've never seen a 2.x rom (other than my own) where the flicking from screen to screen is smooth, so maybe retrofitting the old launcher to 2.x would be idea for those not sold into the live wallpapers thing (or maybe we could make our own version of live wallpapers with animated gifs or even some fancy java)
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Click to collapse
Okay, thanks. Well if one wanted to push the 1.6 launcher into 2.0 or 2.1 what libs or framework would need to be copied?
Well I just answered my own question: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=645550&page=80
Except with this one you loose the eclair zoom in effect when you go into an app--I'm guessing that's part of the eclair launcher. I wonder if there's a way to implement that effect into this doughnut launcher.
Hi all!
I'm a big fan of Windows/Honeycomb UI. I've always wondered to boot honeycomb on my smartphone, and I'm now interested how to use ICS tablet UI in my Galaxy S.
I've tried to change dpi (teamhacksung's ICS). I used 120 value, and system tried to switch into tablet mode, but only partially - notification bar disappeared, desktop switching is tablet-like (3D) now, and some apps switched into tablet (I suppose so), but nothing more.
I'd be happy to just feel the "honeycombish" interface, even only for some fun, and you guys?
i gave this a go myself, i was messing around with the DPI settings and realised certain parts of the UI were scaling and changing. But when i set the value to low my status bar was constantly crashing. I just going to assume perhaps a few changes in the code may be needed to make the ICS tablet UI function properly on a mobile device.
Thats right. I'm interested why there is noone who started developing such mod. There was a lot of ports and fun about honeycomb on phones, and now is just a pure occasion to feel it on mobile device in all it's glory! It would be a great fun to mess with tablet UI on my I9000.
Anarkia had created one,am using it currently. Go to android development and look for aokp b33 by anarkia. Or go direct to the file location http://www.mediafire.com/?88ixkz88i...m,k7k983ibfaqky89,st7y71d1dcrjg,62on90o85pb6h
Thread url: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1579813
FYI,anarkia already stopped dev on tablet ui,but his alpha version for me is use-able.
Peace.
Fuad Malaysia
So I finally pulled the trigger on the One. I'm an OG Evo 4G owner and used to be into this site a lot with the custom ROMs. So far i'm loving the phone after some initial issues with the play store being slow to download. Thought I had a bad antennae.
Anyways, so i'm missing a few things from my Mik ROM on the Evo and just some basic stock stuff from the old Sense.
1st thing is the Album and Bigger music widgets. Are they hidden on this ROM? I see the smaller music widget but is the bigger one gone in this version of sense? I can't find the Album (flip through) widget anywhere. This gone too?
2nd thing is the ability to use the volume button to skip through tracks while the phone screen is off. This was one of the things I loved from Mik and figured that it would be configured as stock on all the HTC stock ROMs by now but looks like it's not.
I see that the 1% battery notification is available in some custom ROMs so that would be another thing i'm looking for.
Question is, is there any custom ROM out there that would have at least some or all of these features available? Oh and also the ability to remove the blink feed and add a regular plain pane in it's place. Or at least have the ability to move it to another space?
QuiQNeZZ said:
Question is, is there any custom ROM out there that would have at least some or all of these features available? Oh and also the ability to remove the blink feed and add a regular plain pane in it's place. Or at least have the ability to move it to another space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before you root and install any custom ROMs, try out a few aftermarket launchers from the Play Store.
I tried Go Launcher, Apex, Nova & ADW Launcher; trial and error led me to stick with ADW for now. ADW (& most launchers) allow/s the user to resize widgets, increase the number of screens, get rid of the dock & apply cool transition effects, amongst other options. And of course it will get rid of Blink Feed.
A launcher does not require root or BL unlock, but it gives you the benefit of customization without any possibility of bricking your device.
Good Luck!
Thanks for the help, i'll try it out. I will probably be rooting tonight anyway though to get tether access and get a more streamlined/optimized ROM to play with. I'm not trying to MOD this one too much but I do want to try and get slightly better battery life if at all possible. Any little thing helps.
Is there a mod or app out to allow for the skip function to be used with the volume rocker?
QuiQNeZZ said:
Thanks for the help, i'll try it out. I will probably be rooting tonight anyway though to get tether access and get a more streamlined/optimized ROM to play with. I'm not trying to MOD this one too much but I do want to try and get slightly better battery life if at all possible. Any little thing helps.
Is there a mod or app out to allow for the skip function to be used with the volume rocker?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try OMJ's mod pack
I think you need to be on a deodexed Rom though
Sent from my Blue One
Surprise ! Received update and installed.. seems good for now. But feels WIP in a few areas. Needs 1 update to complete it.
Downloading
Snap or Exynos?
India has exonys
the new icons on the notification panel look cartoonish
got the update, a lot has changed, and I am impressed with Samsung. Good Work.
Not impressed.
1. Quick settings design is back to Touchwiz
2. OneUI is inconsistent. Even Samsung apps like My Files still have key interactive elements on top still.
3. Icons and color scheme back to cartoonish touchwiz
4. Broke Samsung apps like Goodlock and lost all customizations including some themes.
5. Dont really get the OneUI concept. I know that I'm opening the Message app. Do I really need to waste half the screen with a message telling me I'm in Messages?
Etc etc
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
arbit12 said:
Not impressed.
1. Quick settings design is back to Touchwiz
2. OneUI is inconsistent. Even Samsung apps like My Files still have key interactive elements on top still.
3. Icons and color scheme back to cartoonish touchwiz
4. Broke Samsung apps like Goodlock and lost all customizations including some themes.
5. Dont really get the OneUI concept. I know that I'm opening the Message app. Do I really need to waste half the screen with a message telling me I'm in Messages?
Etc etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hence I said WIP... needs atleast 1 update big 1 at that